Wednesday's letters to the editor

Give peace a chance

With the passing of Nelson Mandela and the heartfelt accolades across the globe, wouldn't it be a wonderful tribute if all nations turned their swords into pruning hooks and plowshares and treated all men as equals. Unfortunately, in a few weeks it will be back to fighting and name-calling as usual. Surely there is a lesson to be learned here.

W. Richard Foster,

Fort Myers

Wise men stamp

Re: "Lost customer," Bob Synnott, Dec. 9. It looks like Mr. Synnott jumped the gun and is now disqualified from the race to defend Christmas. In fact, the post office is selling a beautiful forever stamp this year depicting the three wise men. And yes, the word Christmas is clearly spelled out.

Mr. Synnott no longer has to worry about the Hanukkah stamp interfering with the spirit of Christmas. It reminds you of the folks who haven't been in a public school classroom in 50 years hot under the collar because kids don't say the pledge to the flag ... when actually they do.

George Cook, Fort Myers

Christmas stamp

I do not know where Bob Synnott is purchasing his postage stamps. I buy mine at the post office at Weavers Corner in North Fort Myers. Noticing the array of stamps for sale, baseball heroes, movie stars, Purple Heart, Hanukkah, etc, I asked if they had Christmas stamps (since I do not celebrate other holidays). The clerk then sold me 10 stamps. They had the word "Christmas" printed on them and a picture of Joseph and Mary (riding a donkey) and with a bright star overhead. I believe that stamp represents a Christmas stamp.

So let's thank the U.S. Postal Service for their wisdom in printing this stamp.

Merry Christmas and may you send all those Christmas cards using a Christmas stamp with clearly a religious bent.

Chuck Klump,

North Fort Myers

Secular misguided

Re: "Self-righteousness," Jon Larsen Shudlick, Dec. 2. I'm sorry Jon Shudlick is so upset with Republicans. Obviously, he's not well. I'm sorry, too, so many secular liberals are irritable and angry about religion and the reason for the season. It's unfortunate because this condition is not covered under Obamacare.

However, secularists often get top billing on the editorial pages. Harriet Stanton-Leaffer's guest opinion comes to mind (Nov. 30). She concludes "Misused religion is the root of all evil." Yes, she is entitled to that opinion, but not to her cited evidence - all hyperbole or untrue.

Another writer had a similar allergic reaction to Christians. He would be perfectly content to take the word God off our money and out of the pledge. He says for Christians to think otherwise, unless they are perfect, makes them hypocrites or "faux Christians."

These misguided folks no doubt look to the higher power of horoscopes and Ouija boards for guidance and forgiveness, so I don't want to be too harsh.

However, it does seem the only way to curb this exuberant nonsense is to drug test all editorial page contributors. Then, it's more likely people would write nice letters like mine.

Jan Ganter, Fort Myers

Shifting debris

Re: "Trash guys too picky," Linda Evans, Dec. 9. Ms. Evans says she recycles all plastics with the recyclable triangle but is offended she got a sheet in the mail saying what she can and can't recycle. Does she really expect the recycle collectors to spend time going through people's recycling bins to look for trash? What would they do with it? Throw it on the ground? Give us a break.

P.S., the gentleman from Lehigh who wants Christmas stamps needs to go to a better post office. I am using a beautiful Madonna and Child from a painting by Jan Gossaert in the Cleveland Museum of Art that I got from the post office at Sun Harvest.

Suzanne Ferguson,

Fort Myers

Easier recycling

The state of Florida is a model for recycling. The raw materials are sold for profit, the refuse burned cleanly, firing a boiler which creates steam that turns the turbine generators keeping our lights on and money in our pockets.

A few years ago, I attended the open house for our state-of-the-art recycling facility in Lee County and it's a beast. Nothing short of massively hungry and requiring a sizable crew to feed it. Keeping the beast fed makes us money and downtime quickly gets expensive.

The biggest burp occurs when plastic grocery bags become entangled. This is being compounded by wire, scrap metal and the wrong types of glass that need to be handpicked from the belts feeding the beast.

John E. DeGennaro,

Cape Coral

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Wednesday's letters to the editor

With the passing of Nelson Mandela and the heartfelt accolades across the globe, wouldn't it be a wonderful tribute if all nations turned their swords into pruning hooks and plowshares and treated